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Old 05-26-2022, 10:47 AM   #316
Eric Vail
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch View Post
So I've been thinking a lot about the transition of Canadian Players into the CFL. There are a lot of difficulties happening.

The emphasis is shifting to club teams. High School Football seems to be dying a slow death. Schools don't have the budget for it. The season I think is dropping down to 5 games, and we're still losing players over the whole concussion issues because Football Canada has really lost the Public Relations battle over concussions.
I don't think any schools have lost their teams because of budget reasons in Calgary.

The concussion issue is a huge reason. The shifting demographic in Canada is another big reason. With Canada's declining birth rate, we have fewer and fewer kids in our schools coming from families with a football tradition. There are many who come from Asia, Africa, and South America and football is completely foreign to them and not that attractive.

Teachers have been squeezed hard the last number of years with heavier teaching loads and many more expectations on them and fewer and fewer are interested in coaching.

The other local problem is Calgary High Schools have allowed all the top talent to congregate in three or four schools. That leaves the rest of the schools unable to compete and strips them of leadership for their teams. The result is what we have now - junior football is almost dead and senior football is just not what it once was.

Per capita, I bet there are half the number of kids playing high school football now in Calgary as there was 10 years ago. I would be interested in hearing if this is the same situation in other places in Canada.
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